“$10,000 is great for a candidate…but that and another $10 million is what they need to run a campaign.”

The su­per PAC era spawned many changes in polit­ic­al cam­paigns. Here’s an­oth­er one: Tra­di­tion­al polit­ic­al ac­tion com­mit­tees are tak­ing ex­pens­ive steps to re­tain rel­ev­ance in an age when the price of polit­ics keeps soar­ing.

On top of writ­ing their tra­di­tion­al four-fig­ure checks to House and Sen­ate can­did­ates, a num­ber of reg­u­lar PACs are already pour­ing tens or hun­dreds of thou­sands in­to mail, TV, or oth­er ad­vert­ise­ments dir­ectly ad­voc­at­ing for cer­tain can­did­ates. As out­side spend­ing has boomed this elec­tion, led by over $40 mil­lion from the con­ser­vat­ive group Amer­ic­ans for Prosper­ity, reg­u­lar PACs — in­clud­ing some run by po­ten­tial pres­id­en­tial con­tenders in 2016 — are try­ing to keep up with the Joneses.

For a polit­ic­al gen­er­a­tion, White House as­pir­ants from Al Gore to Barack Obama used lead­er­ship PACs to send $1,000 dona­tions to can­did­ates around the coun­try, hop­ing to curry fa­vor with loc­al and na­tion­al politi­cians whose sup­port could come in handy dur­ing a pres­id­en­tial primary. But that kind of money doesn’t make as much of a dent in cam­paign costs as it once did.

“Lead­er­ship PACs are al­most a thing of the past when you’ve got soft money out there able to write these kinds of checks,” says Terry Sul­li­van, the dir­ect­or of Sen. Marco Ru­bio’s lead­er­ship PAC.

“Lead­er­ship PACs are al­most a thing of the past.”

“$10,000 is great for a can­did­ate, and they’re ap­pre­ci­at­ive,” Sul­li­van con­tin­ued. “But that and an­oth­er $10 mil­lion is what they need to run a cam­paign. We wanted to be able to do more.”… Un­der the cur­rent en­vir­on­ment, that doesn’t make the kind of im­pact Marco wanted to make.”

That’s why Ru­bio’s group, Re­claim Amer­ica, has stepped bey­ond the usu­al lead­er­ship PAC role. In ad­di­tion to the $10,000 that Ru­bio’s PAC sent to Rep. Tom Cot­ton’s Sen­ate cam­paign in 2013, it dir­ec­ted an­oth­er $18,000 to the Arkansan by so­li­cit­ing and col­lect­ing money straight from Re­claim Amer­ica donors. On top of that, Re­claim Amer­ica spent an­oth­er $200,000 air­ing its own pro-Cot­ton TV ad­vert­ise­ment last fall as Demo­crats began at­tack­ing him.

Re­claim Amer­ica also aired TV ads sup­port­ing Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hamp­shire as gun-con­trol ad­voc­ates went after her vot­ing re­cord last year, and the Ru­bio PAC just star­ted run­ning TV ads in sup­port of Iowa Re­pub­lic­an Sen­ate can­did­ate Joni Ernst this week.

An­oth­er po­ten­tial 2016 pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate, Sen. Rand Paul of Ken­tucky, did a sim­il­ar thing last elec­tion, when his lead­er­ship PAC (Re­in­vent­ing a New Dir­ec­tion, which — you guessed it — shortens to RAND PAC) spent $400,000 on ads bash­ing five Demo­crats run­ning for Sen­ate over for­eign aid. Ru­bio’s group bundled dona­tions for sev­er­al Re­pub­lic­an Sen­ate can­did­ates in 2012, too.

On the oth­er side, more-con­ven­tion­al spread­ing of lead­er­ship PAC dol­lars seems to be down. The two lead­ing po­ten­tial Demo­crat­ic pres­id­en­tial can­did­ates, Hil­lary Clin­ton and Joe Biden, don’t have them. An ar­ray of pro-Clin­ton su­per PACs have already formed to mar­shal money on her be­half, in­clud­ing Ready for Hil­lary, which took a leg­al step this week that al­lows it to donate to can­did­ates like a lead­er­ship PAC, while Biden is re­portedly un­in­ter­ested in form­ing a lead­er­ship PAC partly be­cause of con­cerns about its im­pact.

You can count the can­did­ates who have re­ceived dona­tions from Ru­bio, Paul, or Sen. Ted Cruz on two hands (though there is plenty of time left for them to give money), while New Jer­sey Gov. Chris Christie’s perch as chair­man of the su­per-PAC-like Re­pub­lic­an Gov­ernors As­so­ci­ation of­fers a vehicle for rais­ing and spend­ing money that makes a lead­er­ship PAC re­dund­ant.

Sev­er­al reg­u­lar in­dustry PACs have ad­op­ted souped-up out­side spend­ing strategies sim­il­ar to those of Ru­bio and Paul. The Amer­ic­an So­ci­ety of An­es­thesi­olo­gists has spent about $300,000 on in­de­pend­ent ex­pendit­ures this year, well ahead of its pace in 2010 and 2012, when al­most all of its $620,000 in dir­ect elec­tion spend­ing came in the late sum­mer and fall. The Amer­ic­an Hos­pit­al As­so­ci­ation PAC spent about $400,000 in early May to pro­duce and air TV ads sup­port­ing Demo­crat­ic Sens. Mark Be­gich in Alaska and Mark Pry­or in Arkan­sas. That’s more money than the AHA spent on Sen­ate races in either 2010 or 2012, com­ing all of six months be­fore voters in either state will cast bal­lots.

But those states and many oth­ers have already seen mil­lions of dol­lars in out­side ad­vert­ising, largely fueled by groups that can raise and spend un­lim­ited amounts of money. In Louisi­ana, an­oth­er red state rep­res­en­ted by a Sen­ate Demo­crat, out­side groups had already spent about $9 mil­lion on ad­vert­ising by the end of April, ac­cord­ing to sources track­ing me­dia buys.

“There’s more money pumped in from out­side than ever,” one PAC dir­ect­or said. “So if you want to have an ef­fect and be help­ful to a par­tic­u­lar mem­ber, you can be more help­ful by put­ting ad­di­tion­al re­sources in­to the race. It’s not that $5,000 in the primary and $5,000 in the gen­er­al aren’t still im­port­ant “… but I think a lot of people are think­ing more about try­ing to make a dif­fer­ence in races that are in play.”

In­de­pend­ent ex­pendit­ures by reg­u­lar PACs cratered in 2010 as su­per PACs ab­sorbed much of the bur­den of coun­ter­ing out­side spend­ing. But the sub­sequent rise in out­side money this year has pushed reg­u­lar PACs to open their wal­lets more in this elec­tion cycle.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) are threatening to block the spending bill—and prevent the Senate from leaving town—"because it would not extend benefits for retired coal miners for a year or pay for their pension plans. The current version of the bill would extend health benefits for four months. ... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Thursday afternoon moved to end debate on the continuing resolution to fund the government through April 28. But unless Senate Democrats relent, that vote cannot be held until Saturday at 1 a.m. at the earliest, one hour after the current funding measure expires."

Source:

PARLIAMENT VOTED 234-56

South Korean President Impeached

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The South Korean parliament voted on Friday morning to impeach President Park Geun-hye over charges of corruption, claiming she allowed undue influence to a close confidante of hers. Ms. Park is now suspended as president for 180 days. South Korea's Constitutional Court will hear the case and decide whether to uphold or overturn the impeachment.

Source:

CLOSED FOR INAUGURAL ACTIVITIES

NPS: Women’s March Can’t Use Lincoln Memorial

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Participants in the women's march on Washington the day after inauguration won't have access to the Lincoln Memorial. The National Park Service has "filed documents securing large swaths of the national mall and Pennsylvania Avenue, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial for the inauguration festivities. None of these spots will be open for protesters."

Source:

2.1 PERCENT IN 2017

President Obama Boosts Civilian Federal Pay

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Source:

SHUTDOWN LOOMING

House Approves Spending Bill

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